Page 42 of Fool Me Twice

Ez scoffs. “You’ve never even been through a rift before.”

“Yes, I have,” Roma fires back. “Zero out of ten, wouldnotrecommend.”

Ez’s eyes narrow. “Oh, yeah? When?”

“A few times with Cass, remember? He rifted us to the Sanctum when we broke JJ out, and‍?—‍”

And he rifted me to his house the day I double-crossed them.Roma bites back the words. Considering the dawning realization on Ez’s face, Roma figures that she remembers just as well as Roma does. “And‍—and you know,” she finishes weakly.

Ez’s jaw twitches, but she lets it slide. “Listen, Cass is my best friend and I love him, but his spellcasting technique leaves a lot to be desired. His rifts arefunctional,but he doesn’t pay attention to little details like transitional stability. I do.” She extends a hand in Roma’s direction. “Come on. It’ll be faster.”

Roma’s stomach does something funny. It’s the same annoying sensation she’s been getting every time Ez toes that fragile line they’ve drawn between professional and personal, coworkers and companions‍?—

Allies and friends. “Fine,” Roma says reluctantly, placing her gloved hand into Ez’s and letting the demon tug her forward. “I’ll end you if you try any funny business.”

“Sure you will,” Ez says, and she pulls Roma through the rift.

To Roma’s surprise, she doesn’t feel the lurch of nausea and dizziness that she always associated with Cass’s rifts. In fact, it feels just like taking a regular step, except her step happens to land a mile away near the regional highway instead of on the Courtyard’s cobblestones. She blinks down at the ground, faintly impressed. “Huh.”

“Told you,” Ez says smugly, and she strolls towards the mega-rift just down the block. A Sanctum hunter and a Public Safety demon are standing as far away from each other as logistically possible while they attempt to close it, and Ez lets out a sharp whistle to get their attention. “Yo, Katja! Get out of here, girl. I’ve got this.”

The demon throws Ez a grateful look. “Laguerre, I could kiss you right now,” she says, and before Roma can blink, she peelsopen a rift and disappears from sight, not even sparing a glance at her human counterpart.

Roma approaches more slowly, making sure to stay between Ez and the hunter. “You can head home, Massimo,” she says quietly. “I’m taking the next shift.”

Massimo grunts. He’s not one of the mixed breeds who were originally enlisted to help with Roma’s mission, but hewasordered by the Sanctum to apply his spellcasting abilities to the mega-rift epidemic.

Needless to say, he’s not the biggest fan of Roma right now. Besides Bryant and Chester, she doesn’t think she has any allies left in the Sanctum‍—no one wants to associate with the mixed hunter who plunged Redwater into chaos and made all of their jobs that much harder.

It’s a precarious position, but somehow, Roma doesn’t care about the censure as much as she thought she would.

And she certainly doesn’t care what Massimo thinks of her. “Better you than me,” he says now, and he jogs away without a backwards glance.

“What a charming lad,” Ez drawls, and she raises her hands. “One, two, three‍?—‍”

Roma and Ez jump into closing the mega-rift with their usual efficiency, their spells blending together in a deliberate dance. At this point, they’ve been progressively trying to speed up their incantations, aiming to cast their spells as quickly as possible without sacrificing enunciation and effectiveness.

Not that it matters. Within a few seconds of the mega-rift shuddering into nonexistence, Roma feels the warm breeze of another one opening nearby. She groans, massaging her temples. “Really? I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“Sucks to suck, Gutierrez,” Ez says, and she snaps open another rift. Roma tentatively follows her through, pleased that it’s just as smooth and effortless as before. She could get usedto this kind of convenience in her life. “So do you find it strange that the mega-rifts only open one at a time?”

Roma frowns back as they stride forward. “Actually, I find it more convenient than anything else. One, two, three‍—ages upon ages…”

By the time they finish their incantations, the mega-rift is collapsing in on itself. Ez picks up where they left off like they were never even interrupted. “It’s definitely convenient‍—frankly, I don’t think any of us could handle more than one mega-rift at once, not at this rate‍—but hypothetically, there’s nothingpreventingthem from opening in multiple places at the same time.”

There’s another telltale surge of magic. Roma lets out a slow breath as Ez peels open a rift, considering the words. “Well,” she says, stepping neatly through it and straight back into the Courtyard, “maybe whoever‍—orwhatever‍—is opening them doesn’t have enough power to maintain more than one at a time.”

“And yet they have enough juice to open them in rapid succession?” Ez leads the way towards the mega-rift that blossomed a few yards away from Tacos Near Me, raising her hands. “One, two, three‍—in the name of Nostringvadha‍?—‍”

“Ages upon ages‍?—‍”

Within a minute, the mega-rift vanishes into mist. “I don’t know, Ez,” Roma says, crossing her arms over her chest and bracing herself for the next warm rush of magic. “I really don’t.”

The words are perfectly true, but they still leave guilt churning in her stomach. Ever since the epidemic started, Roma has been relentlessly researching how to stop it: analyzing the spell Bryant and Chester cast from every angle, comparing it with all the other rift-opening spells she can find, poring over every pageThe Magic-Weaver’s Companionfor hints‍?—

So far, she’s coming up empty. Bryant and Chester have been making good on their promise to help her, scouring through library books and talking with other spellcasters, but they’re not having any more luck than Roma.

There’s a piece of the puzzle missing‍—she knows there is‍—but she just can’t see it yet.

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